[Leica] why users love it

[imagist3 at mac.com (Lottermoser George)]

My concern, in this thread, does not involve money. Simply, as the  
subject says, "why users love it."

When I began to explore digital - a long, long, long time ago - back  
in the mid to late 80's - starting with an early Olympus P&S - it has  
been a constant comparison of digital capture files to drum scanned  
film exposed with Zeiss, Schneider and Leica lenses. Owning 10  
different digital cameras; the Canon 20D and 5D with Leica R glass  
were the first to deliver something even close to drum scanned film.  
The Leica DMR and M8 actually hit a higher water mark in terms of  
rendering fine detail. In my opinion they actually sit in a place  
between the 5D and medium format backs (in the 10 - 16 mpixel range)  
in terms of color rendition - skin tone, dynamic range, and fine  
detail. They're surpassing drum scanned film of similar ISO and size.  
Yes. They cost more than other cameras but not significantly. The  
highest end Canons cost more. I'm not familiar with Nikons. However,  
it's my understanding that the D200 has the same chip and software as  
Nikon's more expensive bodies (could be wrong).

Re: Money: In terms of achieving image print quality; it's not just  
the cost of a digital or film body or back. One must consider the the  
cost of scanners and/or scanning services; printers and/or printing  
services; time and storage in handling files of various sizes (even  
if I could afford it; do I really want a 30 mpixel back for my work?)

Regards,
George Lottermoser
george@imagist.com



On Mar 8, 2007, at 7:33 PM, Walt Johnson wrote:

> 1300 for the D200 Nikon, 4800 for an M8. The Nikon seems to do  
> quite well for itself. Why not compare the M8 with something in the  
> same price range?